Obama’s New Majority

The politics of division behind the president's nomination of Chuck Hagel

In the 20th century, only two presidents shaped new governing coalitions that outlasted them. They were the only two men to appear on five national tickets.

The first was FDR, who rang down the curtain in 1932 on the seven decades of Republican hegemony since Abraham Lincoln that had seen only two Democrats in the White House. And Grover Cleveland and Woodrow Wilson had made it only because of divisions inside the GOP.

Franklin Roosevelt would win four terms, and his party would win the presidency in seven of nine elections between 1932 and 1968.

Richard Nixon was the next craftsman of a governing coalition. While he won with only 43 percent in 1968, by 1972 he had cobbled together a New Majority that would give the GOP four victories in five elections between 1972 and 1988. In two of those victories, Nixon and Ronald Reagan would roll up 49-state landslides.

Roosevelt and Nixon both employed the politics of conflict and confrontation, not conciliation, to smash the old coalition. Find me something to veto, Roosevelt once said to his aides, seeking to start a fight with his adversaries to rally his grumbling troops.

“They hate me, and I welcome their hatred,” said FDR in the 1936 campaign. He believed that if a slice of the electorate was incorrigibly hostile, one ought not appease or court them, but use them as a whipping boy to rally the majority. With FDR, the foil was Wall Street, the “money-changers in the temple of our civilization.”

With Nixon it was urban rioters and campus anarchists and their academic apologists and elite enablers, and the demonstrators who blocked troop trains and carried Viet Cong flags as they chanted: “Ho, Ho, Ho Chi Minh! The NLF Is Going to Win!”

In the late ’60s and early ’70s, Southern conservative Democrats and Northern Catholics and ethnics left the party of their fathers in droves to join The New Majority of Richard Nixon, which they saw as representing their values and standing for peace with honor.

Barack Obama seems to be taking a page out of the playbook of these coalition builders. Since re-election, he has been actively seeking out confrontations to drive wedges through the Republican Party.

“Positive polarization,” it was once called.

Rather than do a deal with Speaker John Boehner and offer one-for-one budget cuts for tax hikes, the president forced congressional Republicans into a humiliating climb-down and public retreat that split the House majority asunder. The he spiked the football to rub it in, saying he had made good on his pledge to make the rich pay.

While Obama declined to do battle for his favorite for State, U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice, a battle that would have united Republicans, he has chosen to do battle for Chuck Hagel for Defense. As Hagel is a conservative Republican, this has already divided the GOP foreign policy realists from the neocons and the War Party.

If Hagel is confirmed, Republican resistance will have been routed. If Hagel is rejected, the Republican Party will be damaged in the eyes of many for having trashed a patriot, war hero and friend of veterans who put America first and wanted no more unnecessary wars.

Nixon lost the first two battles he waged to put a Southern jurist on the Supreme Court, then castigated the Senate for perpetrating acts of “regional discrimination,” and went on to win all 11 states of the Confederacy in 1972. It’s called winning by losing.

Obama’s selection of White House Chief of Staff Jacob Lew for treasury secretary, a former budget director whose intransigence in negotiations antagonized Hill Republicans, looks to be another fight the president is picking to portray the GOP as obstructionists who cannot accept the verdict of 2012.

The president is also taking a no-negotiations stance on the debt ceiling, saying he refuses to pay ransom to the GOP to prevent their destroying the nation’s credit rating. Republicans would do well to walk this terrain before choosing to fight upon it.

The coming gun battle, too, is one in which Obama seems to be seeking a clash where, should he lose on the assault weapons ban, he wins with the public and tars Republicans as lapdogs of the National Rifle Association. And the next time a massacre occurs, as inevitably it will, is there any doubt whom the Democrats will hold responsible?

The president has many weapons in his coming clashes with the congressional Republicans. He has the presidency itself, the bully pulpit. He has forums like the Inaugural Address and State of the Union that Republicans cannot match.

He has a press that deeply dislikes the Republican right and serves as his echo chamber. And while the White House speaks with a single voice, the Republican Party is a cacophony of voices.

With demography moving against the GOP, with more and more Americans becoming dependent upon government, it will take leadership not yet visible to rescue the Republican Party from the fate Barack Hussein Obama has in store for it.

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27 Responses to Obama’s New Majority

The Republicans in the end should blame themselves, despite what most of the media claims, the demographic transformation was mostly welcomed by the Republicans. They either turned a blind eye or welcomed the third world people that now will rule future America, so they should not act surprised by the third world voters that will guarantee the demise of the party.

Somewhere back in the 1990s the amount of the American population dependent on government for their living increased to a majority of the voting population. This voting majority has increased expeditiously over the past decade and a half especially with the baby boomers retiring and tapping into Social Security and Medicare. With the economic malaise of the last 4 or 5 years greatly increasing the amount of unemployed and thus people on Unemployment Compensation and Food Stamps and with the large population of welfare recipients already permanently in place, along with the large number of government employees who are currently employed by government on all levels or have retired from government and are receiving retirement benefits all adds up to an extremely large voting block. There is no doubt that like FDR, Mr.Obama has,with the help of his predecessors from both political parties established a constituency of dependency. The problem with the Republicans goes back to the periods of time in the past when they had the political clout to dismantle the dependency class and it’s dependency programs but refused to do so. The Republicans just “went along to get along.” Almost every major tax and spend transfer program that has been set up since the New Deal of 80 years ago has been,more or less,been left in place. Even though the Republicans paid lip service to their conservative base,the programs stayed in place and,as with Bush 2nd and his Drug Plan,actually grew. On the opposite side of the aisle the liberal Democrats,when having the votes,rammed thru more and more programs. Obamacare being a perfect example. In the end the Republicans have squandered every opportunity to really diminish the Dependency Class’s feed bag. Even during Ronald Reagan’s 8 year tenure the Welfare State grew. If Mr. Obama has out maneuvered the Republicans,the Republicans have no one to blame but themselves. They,the Republicans,have squandered almost every chance to reel in the growth of socialism in America. With that said,the Republicans deserve what they get.

I appreciated this analysis. I doubt there will be any serious objections to Hagel. But after fulfilling the policies of a party whose philosophy he by and large must reject as a conservative in thought and or in practice.

How does he then expect to help lead republicans conservatives against that which he helped build. As a conservative leader doesn’t he become inefective? It is in my mind the Romney Dillemma. I oppose National Health Care, but I supported a state program of care. By the way that state program was the model for the national program recently adopted. hard to escape the seeming contradiction.

Attempting to thread the needle as to how the two are different is like shaving with a dull blade. One is liable to get a lot of cuts and very few whiskers.

“Rather than do a deal with Speaker John Boehner and offer one-for-one budget cuts for tax hikes,”

So, rather than accept a complete capitulation to the Republicans on specifically the matter on which he one re-election, he demanded that the Republicans negotiate.

“the president forced congressional Republicans into a humiliating climb-down and public retreat that split the House majority asunder”

Nonsense. Boehner did that all by himself with his Plan B. In any event, if the Republicans “split asunder” because of negotiating with Obama, well, tough luck. How’s that Obama’s fault?

“As Hagel is a conservative Republican, this has already divided the GOP foreign policy realists from the neocons and the War Party.”

And this is Obama’s fault? Well, if the pitchfork-carrying radicals and revolutionaries in the Republican Party were not bent on throwing out anyone who did not meet the most warmongering test, then surely there would be no “division”.

Republicans anathematise their own, and then complain that Obama is taking advantage of it by accepting the heretics and apostates? Really?

“the fate Barack Hussein Obama has in store for it.”

Oh, for crying out loud. Your own writers have been declared persona non grata by the Republican establishment. If the party is failing, it should shoulder its own failures. Don’t blame your weaknesses and fragility on Barack “Hussein” Obama.

If American political parties were completely in line with the masses, there would be three major parties in USA representing the ignorant masses (of course not the esteemed readers of this blog):

1-CRAZY-UNHINGED PARTY: These are those white (many evangelical) people who had too much of extravagance during the good times, and don’t know how to bear with getting old, and with the bad times. They are anarchist, radical, and fiercely anti-state. At the same time, they have the highest inclination for a fascist State (dictatorship and anarchy go together). These are the people who believe Osama is a secret Muslim working to establish Sharia State in USA! He also has a gay Pakistani lover who is a member of Al-Qaidah. No respect for reality. You cannot reason with these people. Cognitive dissonance results from years of alcohol/drug abuse . They project their own secret desires on fantasy foreign governments. They are interventionist and aggressive in foreign policy to the point of blind violence, staunchly pro-Israel too. Islamophobia and xenophobia are major signatures of the group. Islamophobia is particularly dumbfounding considering how many Muslims have been killed by US, and how much of the radical Islam is actually created by western minds and money (but this is too complex for this group). These are representative of the worst kind of modem humans, and they find natural allies in Zionists and Wahhabies in destruction of culture.
In domestic policy, they are uncompromising and dogmatic, for instance, taking their objection to taxes, regulation and abortion to extremes. The CRAZY party does not have a coherent political agenda; it’s more of an attitude expression: they are aggressive, hater, frustrated, unhinged, nihilistic paranoid and racist. These are the people who scare away the rest of voters from the Republican Party. Though racist, many of brains of this party comes from Zionists, and turn the group to foot soldiers of Neo-cons. This group is perhaps 20-30% of population.

2-LIB PARTY: These are truly liberal people who truly believe in feminism, socialism and progressivism. This group is led by Jewish intellectuals, but vast majority are naïve dreamy selfish ant-faith women, who might be up to 20% of population.

The CRAZY-UNHINGED PARTY and the LIB PARTY remind me of husband and wife: very different, yet similar. Different in nominal positions, yet similar in character: their narcissism and their contempt for truth.

3-SANE BUT CLUELESS PARTY: These are ordinary folks, majority of population; one might say they are the true conservatives, since they don’t believe in any ideology. They are moderate, realistic and compromising on most issues. They don’t like too much government, too much tax, or too much of progressive social agenda. At the same time, they are not anarchist, and they are willing to compromise on few issues for the sake of peace. Abortion is wrong, but banning early term abortion or in special cases is just too much intervention. State welfare is not ideal, but the cost of food stamps is small compared to defence. Immigrants do a lot for economy and are not evil, but immigration affairs must be conducted legally and with a regard to public concerns and cohesion. Overtaxing the rich is unacceptable, but the current tax rates are not that bad.
In foreign policy, like the first two groups, they have no clue, and generally go by their stoked fears. Basically, foreign policy is a private business of empire makers, and it’s no business of public. For instance, while the vast majority of people opposed Syrian war, the establishment, run by Israeli, Arab, and Turkish Lobbies gave no crap about what populace think. This group, despite being not presented by any politician, keep getting duped into voting for Republicans or Democrats.

So, Pat, are you complaining, or are you congratulating the President on the some of the best political rat-f*cking since your old boss boarded the helicopter to infamy?

I’ve long maintained that Obama was the Democrat’s Nixon–and other than the lack of a career-ending scandal (at least none we know of), he hasn’t disappointed.

Which makes W the Republican’s LBJ–except that he managed to destroy the party without actually winning any major policy achievements. Unless you consider spending countless amounts of blood and treasure in Southwest Asia to be a policy goal, that is…

The GOP has become the party of the chickenhawks and the Wall Street firsters.

There is nothing patriotic about sending one’s fellow citizens out to die, especially in wars of no benefit to the country. There is nothing patriotic about out-sourcing the country’s wealth producing capability and allowing our markets to be flooded by shoddy, toxic foreign baubles. (However can any sane person believe that a country with imperial ambitions can continue to fulfill them when it’s voluntarily become a member of the 3rd world?)

To win the GOP needs again to appeal to America’s middle class, something they appear determined not to do.

And as for thinking they can remain safe inside their wealthy bubbles, Nicolaeu Ceaucescu, Nicholas II and Louis XVI might have a few words to say against relying on that. Civilization is a thin veneer.

The Republicans use the power of govenment to protect the privileges of the super-rich and the Democrats use it to purchase votes from the growing economic underclass. Meanwhile, who is advocating for the rest of us?

If it continues unchallanged, this corrupt political duopoly will destroy itself and our nation along with it.

One for one budget cuts for tax hikes versus practically no tax hikes on the wealthy, practically no budget cuts and a running of the pigs spending. Was there really nothing in between Mr. Buchanan? I mean besides the democratic plan to cut spending, and increase taxes on where all the money is. Driving wedges? Funny that, since republicans are such a coehesive bunch when it comes to….well, when it comes to saying no to progressive policy initiatives (even their own) and saying yes to everything to do with blaming that other half of the country for anything, as well as yes to absolutely anything for lowering capital gains taxes.
Yeah, walk and then re-walk the terrain since the president did put forth deficit reduction when republicans said no and hung us over the cliff until they got…? Who knows, but President Obama is much less likely to say no to his own initiatives than republicans ever have been to their own. And encourage republicans to stick to their AR’s since the logic of assault weapons not being the reason for mass murder with multiple 30 rnd clips until some nut case, like before, like now and like in the future uses the AR for mass murder, is an unassailable part of our liberty. The dems might have the audacity to blame the AR’s always used, but you and I know people kill, not AR’s designed specifically for killing. Republicans write their own demise. Let it be written. The president will probably sign it.

Great column, but I would disagree with @EngineerScotty that Obama is the liberal Nixon.

To borrow Andrew Sullivan’s line, Obama is more the liberal Reagan. That would make CLINTON the “liberal Nixon.” Indeed, if you compare the two (even down to their phallic nicknames — “Tricky Dick” vs. “Slick Willie”) — it holds up.

Both were elected in a three way contest with about 43 percent of the vote. Both faced impeachment hearings (one resigned, the other acquitted in Senate). Nixon was, arguably, the last “liberal” president of the 20th century, while Clinton accomodated the conservative ascendancy.

Using this analogy, one would liken the 1976 contest to that of 2000, making George W. Bush the “Republican Jimmy Carter” whose errors on economics and Middle East policy soured the public on his party and opened the door for a charismatic individual who would win 50+ percent of the vote in consecutive elections.

I am not sure one characterizes the current WH occupant. Most of the agenda has been one of reactionary responses.

In four years, there does not seem to have been any design to deal with the deficit. No real budget plan. He blasted the Foreign policy of the previous admin., but has enaged in fairly sloppy democracy building in the ME.The Afgahnistan matter as actually grown and I am not sure how one brings troops home without in fact, bringing them home. He seems rather ignorant as to the consequences of a withdrawal will have and there are no whispers as to any contingencies. He claims to be the voice of the poor and the middle class, but when opportunity arrived to address those issues. He bent over backwards to bail out the very corporate entities who created the problem, ensuring that bonuses were paid to the actors directly responsible. There was no leadership as to the housing debacle. Our exports still remain below the three pecent needed to actually grow the economy and job growth.

His one legislative victory was blatantly Constitutional, but apparently Justice Roberts made a social engineering decision and extended hir Judicial powers by rewriting the bill.

Ask me what he believes and I can only say: he thinks men and women of the same sex in marriage relationships is normal – despite science. He thinks that if you get assaulted by the the police, you should come to the WH and have a beer. (I am still waiting, though I think he only meant that for Harvard professors who are his friends).

He doesn’t seem to have accomplished much as the social dynamics between whites, blacks or anyone else — maybe there’s no need. His rhetoric is quite adept at blaming and avoiding responsibility for everything and anything.

He wasn’t elected because his policies, ideas, plans, or ethics were more uplifting, but people just didn’t like the other guy — though they thought he would be a bnetter manager of affairs and they weren’t sure he cared about them. I guess they prefer someone who says they care, but doesn’t get his hands any where near them.

But he seems to be made of the same mold as most in office. Agree with me and your in. Challenge me and your out.

The republican choice to give in was just a sign of no sense of will and or purpose as to what could be as opposed to that hihilist liberal dogma — let’s move forward, even if we have no clue where we are headed.

Now about this whining. I guess there are reasons to whine. But the level of hypocrisy is passed around like water to a person lost in a desert. For nearly three years, liberals and democrats were all on the war band wagon, torture, rendition, drones, alerts, patriot acts and hidden patriot acts.

Only when it came to dig in and take stalk of what was going to be a moral and strategic slog — did democrats and liberals begin to jump ship, actually they bailed water in . . .

@RAGGEDT – your analogies are the exact same I’ve come to (Clinton : Nixon :: W. : Carter :: Obama : Reagan). I recall David Frum once saying Reagan inspired a generation of conservatives, and 30 years later they were still the driving force of the conservative movement. As an Obama Democrat, perhaps to the consternation of TAC readership, I foresee a long period of Democratic ascendancy in store for America, and everything but everything since the election has emphatically reinforced that conclusion.

I appreciate Mr. Buchanan’s very cogent analysis, which reads as a pretty clear warning to the GOP. Although, it doesn’t seem to me that Obama ever possessed the fighting spirit of FDR – one commentator opined that the President keeps seeming to hit bullseyes without ever appearing to be aiming – at least, not until recently. This newly re-elected Obama seems ready to pick fights and has learned how to execute them with deft and skill. Not really sure what the GOP ought to do other than cut some losses and lay low (as Pat suggested in another column, play defense) rather than continue to harm and divide themselves over these internecine battles that keep popping up.

I still maintain that most of the GOP’s wounds have been self-inflicted. The Great Gerrymander of 2010 appears to have backfired in a fairly spectacular fashion. I bet with this latest upcoming debt ceiling vote for example Boehner would love to proselytize and safely vote “no” from the minority rather than be the one responsible for bringing it to the floor and perhaps getting it passed with a minority of his own majority.

I wish the answer was as simple as gerry mandering. For eight years Republicans engaged in a path in complete opposition to their core beliefs. Repeatedly ignoring every warning and punishing those those they sounded concern.

I agree, Conservatives had a leadership that played Russion Roullette with a loaded pistol.

As for hitting targets . . . if the targets don’t require any aim because the issues have become so flat lined — one doesn’t need skill.

The public still hold conservatives to account for the economic mess . . . that is incorrect — but our response has won us very few friends. And with republicans caving in like over easted bread . . . we are confirming the indictment.

EliteCommInc:
“For nearly three years, liberals and democrats were all on the war band wagon, torture, rendition, drones, alerts, patriot acts and hidden patriot acts.”

I reckon anti-war liberals all oughta have got tattoos of it when they were calling us Gay French Secret Muslim Pacifists back in 2003, to combat this inevitable (in retrospect) revisionism. Instead we wasted our time organizing for Dean and pushing for Obama over Hillary mainly for this issue in ’08.

It is simply divide and conquer, remembering the best time to kick someone is when they’re down. And in this case, they’re down from fratricide(military version of the word). Until the party can shed the perception they are all about the money, whether it be War or Wall Street, they will continue to wander in the desert. If you don’t like the “takers” or the “dependency” voting bloc, work towards a solution for the transference of wealth from everyone up to the top. Give more people the means to be self sufficient by protecting them from others that would take as much as they can. Try working for the individual again and see what that’s like.

It would be nice if republicans recognised what works in a free market and what does not. The big one is simple: old, or sick, or old and sick people cant work and make money. It seems as of late, the republican goal is to get rid of the important government function of social security and medicare (along with health care in general). They call it entitlement even though the working class has paid for it (and for years parts of it ran a surplus). Rather, its insurance and if ever there was a legitimate government function it would be here; to promote the general welfare.

Then there is the issue of why more and more people are becoming dependent on government. The majority of employable people are working. To attain a comfortable middle class is still the American dream. The cold hard fact is, wealth has been directed by policy towards the wealthy few by orders of magnitude. If you want less government “entitlement” then you better promote concrete policy (not trickle down economics) to create more lower class weath.

Remove incentives to outsourcing
Implement more tarriffs on countries with lax environmental and labor laws
Increase the minimum wage gradually and significantly
Tax offshore havens
Implement the Financial Transaction Tax
Reinstate Glass-Steagall
(we are dependent on the stock market for wealth and retirement so it should have sound principles)

We will leave the anti science nature of the current republican party for another topic.

Libertarian Jerry, one fact you fail to mention is that a good number of “food stamp nation” are impoverished whites in Southern/Appalachian states who have been reliable voters for the GOP thanks mostly to cultural issues, including (unfortunately) racial bias.

The problem is, the Democrats, with Obama, have essentially tacked toward the center, while keeping their “cultural elite”/labor/minority/ coalition intact. At the same time, they have successfully (and not entirely inaccurately) portrayed the Republican party platform as being out of touch with contemporary society.

“With demography moving against the GOP, with more and more Americans becoming dependent upon government, it will take leadership not yet visible to rescue the Republican Party from the fate Barack Hussein Obama has in store for it.”

Part of the problem is this is such a broad statement that doesn’t deal in fact or nuance. We hear so much lamenting from conservatives about Americans who are “dependent upon government.” We hear very little from conservatives about why Americans are dependent upon government, or what dependency involves. I know of a man who works 12 hour days at Wendy’s and Wal Mart, and relies upon medicaid for the pills that help him walk well enough every day just to be able to get out of bed and work. I suppose Pat would like this gentleman to find a way to make his body not require sleep, so that he can work through the night; so that he can pay for his medication without government aid.

Here’s a suggestion for GOP strategists: Maybe it’s time you guys start thinking about how conservatism can actually create economic opportunity for lower to middle income Americans. Maybe it’s time you stopped caring so much for tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires and started thinking about economic opportunity for working Americans. I really don’t think that the constant belittling of voters as lazy, government dependent spongers is a viable path to becoming a national Party again. Especially when many Americans who receive government assistance are also working very hard, or have been disabled after many years of working hard.

There has never been a successful political Party in this country that wrote off and belittled 47 percent of the voting public.